Page 7 - Demo

oUR sTORIES
VINCE COLETTE
My name is Vince, and I am Cree from Hobbema, Alberta. I have three sisters and a couple of brothers. At the age of one, I was taken by the government and placed in foster care, and for the next three years, I stayed in twenty-five different foster care homes. At four and a half, I was adopted by a French family in Sherbrooke, Quebec. I like to draw, paint, play the guitar, sing, and act as a way of expressing myself. I am bilingual and speak both English and French, but not Cree, the language of my biological family.
While living mainly in Vancouver’s Eastside from 2001 to 2002, I completed
high school as an adult student. I battle alcoholism, drug addiction, and
depression a bit. It’s tough to get clean when you’re homeless. When my
relationship with the mother of my child ended in 2016, I moved to
Montreal because I wanted to travel, and I had some friends who had moved here. When I got here, I heard that PAQ was just for natives and decided to check it out. “Wow, cool, right on,” was what I first thought about PAQ. I
had no idea that such a place existed. At first, PAQ gave me a place to sleep and made sure I didn’t have to spend money at a hotel, but it has turned into more than that. I come to PAQ because it is safe and quiet, has food, and the community room is a good place to relax and watch a movie or meet friends. PAQ is home to me, but I wish it were open twenty-four hours a day. When I leave PAQ, I sometimes feel discriminated against because I am
Indigenous. I want to have a safe place where I can store my things, like my guitar, but I also don’t want to be alone in my home. I think that the Transition program might be right for me, and I feel ready to try it again.
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